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Sunshine requirements took a new sense of urgency by the 1920s, and expert scientists and doctors asserted a role in light therapy. By 1930, the tan was in, and not just as a result of changing tastes. By 1960, ultraviolet light began to be considered as more of a hazard than a help. It is shown that public education campaigns have been efficient at communicating the danger of sunlight and skin cancer. Ultraviolet radiation became far more of a health threat in the last quarter of the twentieth century than it had been in the first three. The story of American sunlight is one of powerful new...

Sunshine requirements took a new sense of urgency by the 1920s, and expert scientists and doctors asserted a role in light therapy. By 1930, the tan was in, and not just as a result of changing tastes. By 1960, ultraviolet light began to be considered as more of a hazard than a help. It is shown that public education campaigns have been efficient at communicating the danger of sunlight and skin cancer. Ultraviolet radiation became far more of a health threat in the last quarter of the twentieth century than it had been in the first three. The story of American sunlight is one of powerful new fears, of remarkable technological mastery, of created commodities, and of hypernatural but limited solutions to environmental hazards. Briefly, it is the story of modernity's promise and its danger.